


Sleeping Beauty

by whitedandelions



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe of sorts, Curses, Fairy Tale Elements, M/M, Mentions of Season 3 Episode 5, Mutual Pining, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-23 19:33:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17086403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whitedandelions/pseuds/whitedandelions
Summary: Elliot’s cursed into eternal sleep, and Quentin’s determined to break the curse.





	Sleeping Beauty

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pluvial_poetry](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pluvial_poetry/gifts).



> happy yuletide! :)

When Quentin comes back to Fillory, he comes back to chaos.  To be fair, chaos is what he had been expecting since he did leave Elliot and Margo in charge, and while they are the most competent and amazing people he knows, they’re also flighty when bored, and well, suffice to say Quentin isn’t entirely surprised.

Though when he does get close enough for Margo to see him, he gets a different kind of surprise.

“Where have you been?” she snaps at him, but then her expression changes and then she pulls him close for a hug.  It’s uncharacteristic enough that he pauses for a second before pulling her close, and wonders if someone’s dying.

Then he feels entirely dimwitted for thinking that because it’s _Elliot_ who’s dying.

Not that he actually is dying.  The Fillorians are convinced he is, what with their overdramatic reaction to Elliot sleeping eternally, but Quentin knows better.

Elliot is too vibrant of life to let a little curse stop him, and well Quentin’s back now.  There’s no way he’s going to let Elliot be Sleeping Beauty, not when there’s a high chance they can break the curse.  They’ve destroyed the Beast and saved Fillory, this will be _easy_.

* * *

It’s not easy.

He spends three days straight in the library, looking up so many sleeping curses and trying to figure out what went wrong.  Apparently Elliot had fallen asleep in the middle of taking petitions, nearly scaring the Fillorians to death when Margo had to catch him before he fell off the throne.  There had been nothing nearby, nothing that could’ve caused _this_ , and Margo is just as lost as he is.

The fourth day, Quentin takes a stack of books and decides to spend his day reading them in Elliot’s room.  He lugs the books there, and for once, Margo isn’t sitting at Elliot’s bedside.  There’s a nightstand there that would double greatly as a desk for him, so he pulls it over, setting down the books quietly and then sitting down onto the chair he grabbed as well.

He sits for a while, ignoring the books and stares at Elliot.

He looks peaceful where he’s sleeping, beautiful even without being awake for a week and Quentin almost expects Elliot to open his eyes and tease him for staring. He can hear it now, the flirty tone to Elliot’s voice, the _smile_ he’ll wear, and he hasn’t slept a wink ever since finding out Elliot’s been cursed so he blames the way his eyes are starting to sting on that.  He wants it more than anything, and for a second he stops breathing because of the fierce want that courses through his bones.

He lets out a breath and then shakes his head.  He can’t afford to get distracted.  If he wants to see Elliot’s eyes again, he’ll have to break the curse himself.

He grits his teeth, opens a random book from the stack he brought from the library, and starts to read.

* * *

He wakes to the sound of someone giggling.  He blinks his eyes open, instantly alert, and comes face to face with a mermaid.  Not just any mermaid though, the one he had been trying to make a deal with for the past month.

It unsettles him for a split second, in which he isn’t sure if he somehow got transported back in time because it’s Fillory, things like that _happen_ , but he’s still wearing the same clothes he put on that morning so he realizes it’s a dream she’s visiting.

Mermaids have magic here in Fillory, and he’s not entirely surprised that they can somehow delve into dream-visiting.  She’s powerful after all, and he crosses his arms as she smiles at him.

“Haven’t you figured it out yet?” she asks, all coy and subtle, and he frowns at her because he spent the last month dealing with her cryptic remarks, he doesn’t want to have to deal with them in his dreams, too.

But this one isn’t cryptic, it’s quite obvious once he stops to think about it.  His mouth drops open and then he glares at her, crossing his arms in front of his chest.  “You didn’t have to involve him,” he said, trying his best not to yell because he doesn’t want to make her angry, not when she apparently put Elliot under a sleeping curse because of _him_.

“Oh, but I had to,” says the mermaid, and she’s smiling, rows of pointed teeth showing between her perfect, full lips.  “Don’t be too angry, now,” she says, and she swims forward a bit, enough to rest a hand on his crossed arms, “I’ll give you what you want if you pass my test.”

He’s about to snap at her, because _he_ was supposed to undertake her trial alone, and not involve Elliot, but she waves a hand at him.  “Go rescue your sleeping beauty, Quentin,” and he wakes up.

* * *

He sits in silence for a long while as he tries to understand what she means.  He had fallen asleep in Elliot’s rooms, and presumably Margo had left a warm quilt on his shoulders as he slept.  He takes comfort in the warmth from that as he stares at Elliot’s sleeping face, and then sits up, his heartbeat accelerating.

It couldn’t be that simple, could it?

He hadn’t heard it in her voice, and he didn’t think she even _knew_ the legend of Sleeping Beauty, but mermaids wielded magic that others did not understand.  Maybe she read his mind, or maybe she knew a human before him, but she had called Elliot _Sleeping Beauty_.

And well, Elliot truly is a sleeping beauty, what with his hair and perfect face structure, but he doubts the mermaid meant that. Plus, Quentin’s okay with admitting that he’s a little biased because he’s been a little bit in love with Elliot ever since he’s met him, even more so after they spent a whole lifetime together.

He wonders if the mermaids knew he’s been hopelessly in love, if they knew he left to make a deal with them because he couldn’t bear to be so close to Elliot and yet so far.  Perhaps the mermaid had made this his trial on purpose. 

He spends a second to contemplate that thought and send some uncharitable thoughts her direction before standing. 

“I'm going to give you a true love’s kiss, El,” he says, softly out loud to steel his courage, and he hovers uncertainly above Elliot.  His lashes are so long up close and he’s sleeping, and Quentin remembers the look of this so intimately; he’s seen it change over the years but he’s stayed awake and watched Elliot sleep when he couldn’t sleep back in another lifetime.  A lifetime when they only had each other and a mosaic to solve as company.

He’s never asked Elliot about that time, never gathered the courage to bring it up, and he still doesn’t know how Elliot feels.  He sometimes hopes that it isn’t just him, that Elliot’s been pining over him for just as long, but he doesn’t know if this will work.  

It isn’t as if Quentin doesn’t think Elliot’s his true love, because he does.  The other lifetime had showed him that, when Elliot had stayed by his side for all those years, but what if _he_ isn’t Elliot’s true love?  He almost chickens out then, somehow convinced he needs to go call Margo for _her_ kiss, but Elliot’s still sleeping underneath him, and it would be so easy just to try once first.

Because after Margo knows, she’ll insist on calling just about everyone to try out his theory, and then _he’ll_ have to try in front of an audience, and if Elliot doesn’t wake up under his lips and wakes up under someone else, Quentin thinks he’ll just waste away out of sadness.

He kisses Elliot then, with his eyes squeezed shut out of fear, and when his lips meet Elliot’s he swears his heart stops beating.  There’s no movement underneath him, and he’s just about to pull away when Elliot’s hand snakes around him and pulls him close and they’re suddenly making out.  Elliot all but devours him with the way he makes Quentin gasp into the kiss, and when they finally pull away, Quentin’s thoughts are all scrambled.

“It worked,” he breathes, and Elliot gives him a puzzled look.

“Of course it did,” Elliot says, “if you thought I _wouldn’t_ want to be woken up by a kiss from you, then you don’t know me very well at all.”

He flushes pink at the thought, and unhelpfully, his mind reminds him that Elliot’s only woken up _because_ they’re meant for each other which only serves to make him feel even more hot. 

Elliot’s eyes are soft when he gains the courage to look back up.  “I’ve been waiting for you to kiss me for so long,” he admits, and Quentin fixes him with a glare.

“If you tell me to save my overthinking _again_ , I’ll – “

He’s cut off when Elliot moves forward and kisses him again. 


End file.
